Mac tip: Screen cap a selected window

23 January 20121,007 viewsNo Comment

Grabbing screen caps is something I do daily and use these two keyboard shortcuts to get this done: Command + Control + Shift + 3 (capture entire screen) and Command + Control + Shift + 4 (use cross-hairs to grab a selection). There is a very, very useful twist on the latter method to capture a specific window — the whole window and nothing but that window.

Just press Command + Control + Shift + 4 and then tap the Spacebar. A camera icon (image above) will replace the cursor and when you move it over a window it will highlight that window. If you click (tap) on a particular window, OS X will capture it for you.

Moreover, the selected window needn’t be fully visible to capture it in its entirety. Partially off-screen, hidden by one or more windows, etc. this trick gets the whole thing.